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Bishop John Shelby Spong 10/7/2017 bishop Shelby Spong Home The Bishop who was not What's New John Shelby Spong was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1931. John went to the public Cults schools of Charlotte North Carolina and in the 1940s during his junior and senior years of Escaping the Cult school, he took two classes in the Bible. By age 12, he was given a King James Bible as a Apologetics Christmas present by his mother after his father died. His mom is described as "a woman of a simple faith; no critical problems ever bothered her understanding of God" (Rescuing the Current Trends Bible from Fundamentalism, p. 14). He read the bible religiously each day. The bible Bible Doctrines became his source of life and states he was able to quote the scriptures on salvation Bible efficiently. Explanations Ecumenism Spong was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1952 and received his Master of Divinity degree in 1955 from the Protestant Episcopal Emergent Theological Seminary in Virginia. Both the seminary and St. Paul's College have both church conferred on him honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees. He had served as rector of St. Prophecy Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina from 1955 to 1957. Rector of Calvary Parish, Latter Rain Tarboro, North Carolina from 1957 to 1965. Rector of St. John's Church in Lynchburg, Word Faith Virginia from 1965 to 1969. Rector of St. Paul's Church in Richmond, Virginia from 1969 to 1976. In 1973 he was elected by General Convention to a six-year term on the Executive Popular Teachers Council, the governing body of the Episcopal Church, just under the General Convention. Pentecostal Issues He was consecrated bishop on June 12, 1976. In 1986, under Bishop Edmond Browning, he Trinity / Deity was appointed to the Standing Commission on Human Affairs and Health. Spong has been the Episcopal bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark New Jersey since 1979. Starting World Religions in January 2000 he will retire and begin teaching at Harvard. New Age Movement Book Reviews Bishop Spong's writings and teachings are on the authority of the Bible, God, History, the Testimonies Virgin Birth, the resurrection of Jesus, culture, sexuality, and sin. However he is not writing an apologetic for the faith, he is criticizing it, ALL of it. His position is more than just challenging the Scripture, it is anti-biblical and antichrist. He has written several books that Web Directory state that Jesus was not born of a virgin and another that denies that Jesus was actually raised from the dead, just about anything in scripture has become his target. He has Tracts for campaigned for same sex marriages and the ordination of practicing homosexuals. He has witnessing lobbied for abortion rights on the premise of freedom from abortion restrictions, which are Books oppressive to women. Audio Video For those on his side he is admired and praised as a brilliant writer and speaker, bravely campaigning for reformation and a new morality in the Church. In his book In Living in Web Search Sin? 1988, A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, Spong justified The Persecuted Church homosexuality,fornication. He has fervently promoted sexual relations outside of marriage http://www.letusreason.org/Poptea3.htm 1/13 10/7/2017 bishop Shelby Spong for both heterosexuals and homosexuals, maintaining that "sex outside of marriage can be holy and life-giving in some circumstances." He has developed a marriage like ceremony to "recognize and bless" gay couples in Episcopal Churches. Spong has ordained For homosexuals to the ministry and wants all the church to do the same. printing our articles Spong speaks with a man given authority on this and other matters. But in fact when one please copy reads how he interprets the scripture they can only sympathize with a man with no the web direction. The real problem is his gangrene being spread to others. Spong is not gun shy to page by the public, he has appeared on The Phil Donahue Show, The Tom Snyder Show The Oprah highlighting Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Firing Line with Wm. Buckley a the text few times, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher on 5 occasions, The O’Reilly Factor with first - then Bill O’Reilly twice, Nightline , CNN, and even the apologetic program - The John click copy in Ankerberg Show. the In 1988 Spongs first wife died and he states "people all over the Dioscese prayed for her browser- because I was well known. I wondered if the garbage collector in downtown Newark had a paste the wife who had cancer who died and people didn't pray for her would she die quicker, or article into a would she die more painfully and I decided if that’s the way this world works I don't want word to believe in that kind of God." (Dec 27,99 Politically Incorrect Bill Mahr) Spongs mistake program on is interpreting God by his experience of the way the world is. Surely any Christian would your pray for anyone from any walk of life, but it would be Gods prerogative to answering the computer. prayer. When the text is A NEW reformation transferred into word, Spong is calling for a new reformation. Which he claims will be far more reaching than the click to save Reformation of the 16th century. This in no way should be confused with the one by Martin or print. Luther, since he wants to undo everything Luther tried to reform, and more. "It will not be concerned about authority, ecclesiastical polity, valid ordinations and valid sacraments. It will be rather a Reformation that will examine the very nature of the Christian faith itself." "Reformation must also be willing to bear the attack of the threatened religious establishment"... Christianity is doomed for the anti-intellectual voices of the religious right today will never revive the Christian faith for that growing majority of those who have given up on organized religion. The choice before the Church is so clear to me. It is either a radical Reformation or a slow but inevitable death." ( Renewing the call for Reformation) But it is Spong who is actually promoting death because his reformation takes people away from the Scriptures as infallible, inerrant and life giving."I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically." Many have been outspoken against his restructuring. Spong's response to his detractors and fundamentalist foes is " Certainly Martin Luther's life was at risk when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517. Every religious reformer before and since has confronted the same hysterical fear."Spong puts himself in the same class as Luther, when in fact he does not hold a candle to him. Its not that Spong does not understand the Scriptures in light of the traditional Christian view, he just disbelieves it. "The bedrock of the Christian experience is captured in the assertion that the Holy God was present in and met through the life of Jesus. That experience was at first not explained, it was simply stated. Paul did it best when he wrote, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world."…" various explanations began to develop based on the way God was perceived in the 1st century as a supernatural being dwelling http://www.letusreason.org/Poptea3.htm 2/13 10/7/2017 bishop Shelby Spong beyond the sky, who invaded human history to accomplish the divine will. If God was in Christ, then an explanation had to be devised about how this God above had entered the world in Jesus and how this God in Jesus returned to heaven when the work of redemption was complete. The story of the virgin birth was designed to achieve the divine entry. The story of the cosmic ascension provided the means of departure. He goes on to take the stand "The virgin birth tradition, however, assumed an ancient view of reproduction which believed that the newborn lived in the sperm of the male who simply planted it into the womb of the female. So to proclaim the divine origin of a person, one simply replaced the human father with a divine agent. It was not necessary to replace the mother since she was believed to add nothing to the new life. A virgin birth was therefore a rather sexist male misunderstanding of procreation." "Christianity so clearly stands today in need of a Reformation that will recast the Christ experience in radically different ways from those of our Christian past. If God was in Christ, as I deeply believe, then a new way must be found to make sense of that incarnate presence. … The idolatry of ancient and outmoded explanations must be broken open or we stand to lose the wonder that makes the Christ so radically important." Spong misses the point of theology being organic, that all the doctrines are interconnected with each other. If there is no virgin birth than God took upon himself a sinful nature which would make him in many respects no different than you or I. If we take what he says at face value, what would make Christ any more important than Buddha or Mohammed or any other religious teacher. How are we to believe anything in the bible? His position of the bibles stories being killed by its literal interpretation is nonsense.
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